The start of a crazy two days ...

Thursday, March 14:  DAY THREE

I woke up Thursday morning anticipating a beautiful morning on the water with Andrew and Alison, and then a long drive with Carol and Berniece (& David) up to Gainesville to visit with Daniel and celebrate his 28th birthday.

However, David was checking in at the airport for our flights the next day and asked me to get my Passport so that he could check me in as well. Thus started our descent into the abyss (almost) ... you see, when I gave David my "Passport," he declared that "this is NOT a Passport, Carol Jean." Yikes. I was told by the "Passport Expert" up at the Belmont Post Office that in order to get a Passport Book on time for my trip, I needed to pay $300 to expedite it in order to guarantee it's timely arrival ... HOWEVER, if I wanted to, I could apply for a simple PASSPORT CARD, which would get me into Canada, Mexico or even the Bahamas! She did not ask and I did not think to tell her that I was FLYING to the Bahamas. Hmmm ... Houston, we have a problem!

Meanwhile, though, we had plans to go boating with Andrew and Alison during the day as well as having dinner with them in the evening. So we set out on the boat to a little island (I've forgotten the name), anchored the boat, and went ashore -- me, with a sinking heart because of wondering if my trip to Nassau would have to be cancelled.

David and Andrew brought their cool kites along and were flying them ...

... until I asked David to go back to the boat to retrieve my shorts--at which time a family from the opposite side of this little island, invaded our territory right as Andrew and David were putting down their kites and the lines got CRAZY tangled together ...

It was just one more thing that made our hearts ache!  PS  After an hour of careful and patient work, both kite lines were untangled and the kites were put away. Andrew and David are two of the most patient people I have ever met!

I walked as far as I could walk on this little paradise ...

Below is David's 19' Yamaha boat. It is a beauty, isn't it? David can crank it up to 53 rpm's and it practically flies across the water.

I met a LOT of birds on my walk ...

And saw beautiful wonders that God has made ...

The blue of the sky and water are SO remarkable ...

And speaking of Andrew and Alison ... they are two of the nicest people anywhere around! And they are super sweet together, married ELEVEN years now. They still look like teenagers. I love them very much.

When we finished boating, we came back to shore, David washed the boat (a 90-minute practice each and every time the boat is taken out), and then Carol, Berniece, Andrew, Alison, David and myself enjoyed a 2-for-1 fish and chips dinner ... well ... David and I and Berniece did the fish and chips and took an order home for Berniece to enjoy later (she loves fish a LOT) ...

But once we were back at the house, we needed to tackle this Passport problem. David called TPA and got clarification about Passport Cards ... hmmm ... exactly. It clearly says on the back of the card in BLACK AND WHITE, "Not for international flights." Yikes. NOW WHAT?

David called a friend who advised that we get to Miami an hour before the Passport Office opens, get in line, and go through the process of obtaining a passport book that same day--he thought it might be possible ... SO ... we hopped in David's car at about 7:00 pm and drove the 4.5 hours to Miami (because, you see, our flight to Miami wasn't arriving until about 9:30 in the morning ... too late to be first in line at the Passport Office!). We packed up and headed to Miami!